Soniafromshenorock

Q: Itunes has duplicated some songs from albums that have been there for years

Is anyone having an issue with iTunes duplicating thier songs.

Posted on Jun 1, 2015 7:35 AM

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Q: Itunes has duplicated some songs from albums that have been there for years

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  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Jun 1, 2015 9:26 AM in response to Soniafromshenorock
    Level 10 (85,313 points)
    iPod
    Jun 1, 2015 9:26 AM in response to Soniafromshenorock

    Duplicates in iTunes are usually the result of reimporting content located outside of the media folder when your settings allow for imported songs to be copied into the media folder. iTunes doesn't keep a record of the external paths, so if you add the same folder twice you get two copies.



    Apple's official advice on duplicates is here : Find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library. It is a manual process and the article fails to explain some of the potential pitfalls such as lost ratings and playlist membership, or that sometimes the same file can be represented by multiple entries in the library and that deleting one and recycling the file will break the other.

     

    Use Shift > View > Show Exact Duplicate Items to display duplicates as this is normally a more useful selection. You need to manually select all but one of each group to remove. Sorting the list by Date Added may make it easier to select the appropriate tracks, however this works best when performed immediately after the dupes have been created.  If you have multiple entries in iTunes connected to the same file on the hard drive then don't send to the recycle bin.

     

    Use my DeDuper script if you're not sure, don't want to do it by hand, or want to preserve ratings, play counts and playlist membership. See this thread for background, this post for detailed instructions, and please take note of the warning to backup your library before deduping.


    (If you don't see the menu bar press ALT to show it temporarily or CTRL+B to keep it displayed.)


     

    The most recent version of the script can tidy dead links as long as there is at least one live duplicate to merge stats and playlist membership to and should cope sensibly when the same file has been added via multiple paths.



    Oops - I see I've posted in iTunes for Mac. My script is for Windows only. The background post still has some relevant details.



    tt2

  • by Limnos,

    Limnos Limnos Jun 1, 2015 9:21 AM in response to Soniafromshenorock
    Level 9 (53,643 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 1, 2015 9:21 AM in response to Soniafromshenorock

    Soniafromshenorock wrote:

     

    Is anyone having an issue with iTunes duplicating thier songs.

    It seems yes, for some, if you search past posts.  I have never had this problem.

     

    Oh, this is more than just a rhetorical question and you are actually in search of a solution? You might wish to post more details about which tracks are being duplicated and under what use conditions (are you busy doing a major reorganization of your library?) If these are iTunes Store purchases I guess they may have changed labels at the Store that means iTunes no longer recognizes these purchases as being on your computer and is downloading them because you have automatic downloads set in preferences.  Just a guess.